TGNS Server?

**blu.knight** · 11-21-2008, 07:17 AM

Is the TGNS server down forever? Is NS truly dead?

Did Valve really release so many fun games that my beloved has been lost to me?

**Pokerface** · 11-21-2008, 10:27 AM

Originally Posted by blu.knight

Is the TGNS server down forever? Is NS truly dead?

Did Valve really release so many fun games that my beloved has been lost to me?

To answer your questions:
Yes. Probably.
That's one take on it.

Truthfully, the slow process of NS2 had the most to do with the closure and the general dwindling of the greater community. I don't begrudge them their dev schedule, but to maintain interest in the game, it needed to be much faster than it was/is.

**blu.knight** · 11-21-2008, 05:34 PM

I agree with that. They seem to be moving along pretty quickly from what I have seen (or at least have picked up a lot recently), but it is still an ambitious game with a small team.

I think NS would still be kicking if we didn't have games like TF2 and Portal come out, and now Left for Dead... There weren't really any great multiplayer PC games for us other than NS. But the novelty for some new really fun multiplayer games made the NS community dwindle.

**aeroripper** · 11-21-2008, 11:53 PM

I'm sure we'll have a thriving server again once NS2 gets released.

**blu.knight** · 11-22-2008, 10:04 PM

The thing I've noticed about NS is this:

The number of servers are greatly exceeding demand. This is causing demand to drop because players can not find good servers, so can not play good games, so stop playing NS.
There are a ton of empty servers, and if you filter by servers with players, you are then faced with a list of servers filled with bots and one or two humans each.

I find the second part very frustrating because if the real players from these servers all went to one server we could actually get another good game going. As it is, the only games that are full-human are on the 32 player servers, which is just not how NS was meant to be played.

**aesop rock** · 11-28-2008, 05:20 PM

It's so sad; I miss my skulky. I am still waiting for NS2, but only because NS is, apparantly, dead or playing dead.

**micr0c0sm** · 11-30-2008, 05:13 AM

NS is just *playing* dead. Regular pugs still happen and new players are learning how to play.

**Dead_Meat** · 12-05-2008, 05:45 AM

i'm still sneaking in a game or 2 on g4b2scool or the bad servers
and i've seen a couple others in there from time to time

**micr0c0sm** · 12-05-2008, 06:43 PM

Originally Posted by blu.knight

The thing I've noticed about NS is this:

The number of servers are greatly exceeding demand. This is causing demand to drop because players can not find good servers, so can not play good games, so stop playing NS.
There are a ton of empty servers, and if you filter by servers with players, you are then faced with a list of servers filled with bots and one or two humans each.

I find the second part very frustrating because if the real players from these servers all went to one server we could actually get another good game going. As it is, the only games that are full-human are on the 32 player servers, which is just not how NS was meant to be played.

This seems like a server seeding problem which is game-agnostic - if there was a way to mark yourself to 'autojoin when X people mark themselves ready to play on server Y', which setting would mark you ready to play on server Y, it would be real easy to seed new servers. This kind of advanced steam usage would require access to an sdk. There are some other hacks around this that could be done by reverse engineering the steam protocol. One could hook into the IM window, creating a steamID bot, say 'nsbot' that would add steamIDs to a list when it receives a 'ready' message. Once 12 message ready, a community event or just private IM could be sent to those people with the connect string.

This might help eliminate the issue of not wanting to play on server X but its better than hanging out in a readyroom.

Valve tried to alleviate this with the 'Invite to Game' feature
which I think is heavily underused - try seeding a server with that and it works pretty well, but still isn't ideal.

**blu.knight** · 12-06-2008, 01:33 PM

The lobby system from LFD would really be very useful. It has some disadvantages but it also has some great advantages. It allows for maximal usage of servers (fill up as many servers as possible with full games rather than having the players spread out over lots of servers), but prevents communities from forming around one server.

Something like that though- a pug system built into the server browser- would really help out NS.

**Juggernaut** · 12-06-2008, 10:36 PM

So NS died............ Thats Crazy...

**Zephyr** · 12-11-2008, 11:39 AM

We're still here at TG. Its not dead, it just (finally) got old.

-Zephyr

**micr0c0sm** · 12-11-2008, 01:04 PM

If you want to start up old games, idle the steam community chat room / get an officer to schedule an event, etc...People are just playing on other servers or sometimes other games. Also, this semester ends in the next week or two so not many can play games right now.

**Polska** · 01-04-2009, 10:22 PM

Oh thats sad to hear. I hope to be back here one day. Most likely with Starcraft 2, or Diablo 3 (and NS2 of course!). Is there any rough estimates for NS2? (2010?).

I dont play a whole lot of online PC these days but for those that remember me from ns I am on XBL, gamertag adamdz.

**NothingMore.** · 03-25-2010, 09:53 PM

Woah my login still works! HI!
sc2 is amazing and I have been playing it, I would really love to play with some of you guys again! protoss rock. shame to hear ns is dead =( I loved that game more than any other game ever, but then it was never meant to last. I had such pride in NS hahaha, seems so wasted but holy crap there was some good times that i'll never forget.